A Customer Success Story
Hollard Insurance seamlessly migrated to iServer365 with the help of Orbus Software
Customer at a glance
"It's the personal relationship with Orbus that really takes it over the top"
Pulkit Kapur
Enterprise Architect
Industry
Insurance
Region
Africa
No. of Users
37
Products Used
The Challenge
- Hollard were iServer users, but needed an EA tool that could offer full cloud support for their cloud-first approach
- They also hoped to open up EA to the wider business and encourage more collaboration
Hollard Group is a privately owned insurance group based in South Africa. Established in 1980, the company employs more than 2,000 people and operates across a number of African countries. Hollard have been iServer users for several years and were eager to implement iServer365.
Motivation to Upgrade
Two key features of iServer365 persuaded Hollard to look to migrate. The first was cloud capability; Hollard is becoming a cloud-first company and wanted an EA tool that could offer full cloud support.
The second feature was collaboration. For Hollard architect Pulkit Kapur, improving collaboration throughout the company was absolutely key, and iServer365’s integration with SharePoint and Teams opens up EA to the wider business. Kapur emphasized that the ‘consumers’ of EA, such as technical teams & analysts, have more visibility for the output of the EA team. Having SharePoint as the document repository is far more accessible to the wider business as they can more easily view and manage relevant information with no requirements for additional training.
Similarly, the new out-of-the-box dashboards available in iServer365 have contributed to greater participation from senior management. EA can often be complex and difficult to understand for management interested in quick decision making, so features
such as easy-to-use Application Rationalization dashboards greatly simplify the process for decision making.
The Result
- Hollard opted to migrate to iServer365 to take advantage of its cloud capabilities and Microsoft365 integration
- A strong personal relationship with Orbus Software made the migration process easy for Hollard
The Transition
Due to the strong relationship between Orbus Software and Hollard Group, Hollard were enthusiastic adopters of iServer365 and needed little persuasion to attend a demo of the software. Hollard was already attracted to the cloud features of iServer365, but the demonstration of the extensive Microsoft 365 integration really impressed Kapur and the team. The ability to seamlessly use Teams and SharePoint with iServer365 solved a major problem for the team. At the same time, Hollard was attracted by the flexibility of iServer365, with the option to quickly scale up or scale down their commitment depending on their needs.
Hollard Group has a large architecture team, with around 15-20 architects who were present for the demonstration. After the demo, the team were asked their opinions on migrating to iServer365 and the response was unanimous: everyone was impressed.
The Future
Hollard is still in the early days of their iServer365 experience and haven’t yet had time to fully explore the benefits that the product can bring, but it is already being used across the business, in all business units. It is easier for the EA team to keep everyone updated to the latest developments, and Kapur hopes that the greater ease of use will encourage more people to contribute and help to improve data quality. There is almost a virtuous cycle, in which the positive impacts of iServer365 bring more people on board, which in turn improves the reach and quality of content in the tool, allowing for further impacts across the enterprise.
On advice for other companies adopting similar migrations, Kapur stressed the need for clean data before any migration takes place, as well as the importance of knowing your customizations. Customizations can easily be forgotten about once implemented, which leads to problems if important changes are missing after migration.
The relationship with Orbus remains a high point, even after 3.5 years. Kapur commented that a tool can meet their needs, but it is the personal relationships which ‘take it over the top’ and really contribute to long term success. Hollard
feel that they can get assistance and training from Orbus whenever it is required, whatever is required.
